Sports

District volleyball tournaments set for three area schools

The Weldon Valley Warriors and the Prairie Mustangs will play in the 1A District 4 tournament this week at Northeastern Junior College in Sterling. (Brandon Boles / Fort Morgan Times)

District tournaments for class 1A and 2A volleyball this week have been released and three area schools know when and where they will be playing.

The 2A District 2 tournament will see the Wiggins Tigers play Tuesday for a chance to advance to Thursday's championship pool. In the 1A District 4, Prairie will begin pool play on Tuesday and Weldon Valley will have pool play on Thursday. Both teams will look to advance to the championship pool on Saturday for the right to advance to the regional tournament the following week.

1A District 4

Pool play will happen on Tuesday and Thursday with two teams from each day advancing to the four-team championship pool on Saturday. All games will be played at Northeastern Junior College in Sterling.

The Prairie Mustangs will enter the district as the No. 4 seed following a 10-9 regular season and play on Tuesday with the No. 1 seed Fleming Wildcats, the No. 5 seed Heritage Christian Eagles and the winner of the play-in game between the No. 8 seed Pawnee Coyotes and the No. 9 seed Peetz Bulldogs. The play-in game will open Tuesday's pool at 9 a.m., followed by the first game for Prairie versus the Heritage Christian Eagles.

The Eagles, a school out of Fort Collins, are one of two teams that come over to the district after playing a regular season outside of the North Central League. They finished the season with an 8-11 overall record to earn the No. 5 seed. Playing with just one senior on their roster, the Eagles will be one of the youngest teams in the tournament this week.

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Following the game with Heritage Christian, Prairie will sit out a game before returning to the court to face either the Pawnee Coyotes or Peetz Bulldogs. The Mustangs swept both teams in the regular season, winning both matches 3-0. Following the game with the play-in winner, the team will sit for two games and return to play in the final pool game with the Fleming Wildcats. Prairie was swept by the Wildcats in both meetings this regular season.

The Wiggins Tigers look to win their pool in Merino on Tuesday to advance to the 2A District 2 tournament this week. (Brandon Boles / Fort Morgan Times)

On Thursday, the Weldon Valley Warriors will begin pool play as the No. 3 seed and face the No. 6 seed Caliche Buffaloes. Also playing in Thursday's pool will be the No. 2 seed Briggsdale Falcons and the No. 7 seed Longmont Christian Warriors.

Weldon Valley will go for its second win over Caliche in the first game at 9 a.m. to begin pool play for the day. The Warriors swept the Buffaloes 3-0 on the road on Sept. 23 in the only meeting during the regular season.

After sitting out of the second game on Thursday, Weldon Valley will return to the court for the third game with Longmont Christian. The schools were scheduled to play each other during the regular season but Longmont Christian was forced to forfeit the game. Longmont Christian comes in with a 4-11 overall record and reeling with seven straight losses, including the forfeit to Weldon Valley.

Pool play will end three games later with Weldon Valley facing Briggsdale. The Falcons were one of two teams from the North Central League to sweep Weldon Valley in the regular season as they won both games 3-1.

The top two teams from Tuesday's and Thursday's pool will then play in a championship pool on Saturday for the right to move on to regionals. There, the top three teams will advance to the regional tournament. Games will start at 9 a.m. with seedings and game times to be determined.

2A District 2

The Wiggins Tigers finished the regular season winning three of their last four games, all of which were played to five sets. With a 15-4 record and 5-3 mark in the Lower Platte League, the Tigers will head to Merino on Tuesday to begin pool play as the No. 5 seed in their district tournament.

Each team will play twice on Tuesday, starting with Merino taking on Akron at 4 p.m. Wiggins will play in the second game versus Akron around 5:30 p.m. and in the final game with Merino around 7 p.m.

When Wiggins met Akron in the regular season on Sept. 7, they dominated the first set 25-2 and won a couple of close sets 26-24 and 25-23 to get the sweep at the Wiggins Event Center. The win came during the team's 10-game win streak that lasted from Aug. 26 through Sept. 26.

Tuesday will mark the second time Wiggins will play in Merino as the Rams hosted the Tigers on Oct. 12 for their only meeting. In one of the most competitive league games this season, Wiggins and Merino battled to five sets and saw the first four sets decided by three points or fewer. The Tigers won the first two sets 25-23 each but lost three straight 22-25, 22-25 and 9-15 to fall to the Rams.

Whichever team that wins the pool in Merino will advance to Thursday's championship pool in Yuma to meet the No. 1 ranked Indians (18-1, 8-0 league), the No. 2 seed Haxtun Bulldogs (15-3, 7-1 league) and the winner of the other pool being played on Tuesday that features the No. 3 seed Holyoke Dragons (12-7, 5-3 league), the No. 6 seed Wray Eagles (7-11, 3-4 league) or the No. 8 seed Sedgwick County Cougars (3-15, 0-8 league). Games on Thursday will begin at 3 p.m.

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